


Scarves

by runner_love (orphan_account)



Category: The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: F/M, Hate to Love, Knitting is great, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/runner_love
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Thomas dies instead of Teresa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarves

Teresa watched in horror as the roof began to cave in on them.  Watched, helpless, as a young girl’s mother was caught under one of the falling pieces of ceiling.  The girl jumped back, but seemed to freeze on the spot.  She stared at the place where her mother had disappeared, eyes wide with shock.  Teresa rushed up to instinctively, yelling at her to _run,_ tugging on her arm.  She didn’t even notice, in the chaos. Didn’t see how the rest of the ceiling was about to crush her, until something, some impossible force, had pushed her and the young girl out of harm’s way.  The girl seemed to wake from a trance, and took off running towards the Flat-Trans.   
Teresa turned around to see who had saved her, to thank them, to clutch their hands in gratitude.  In a second, she realized whoever had pushed her out of the way had died to save her.  In another second, she realized who it was.  
Of course.  Thomas, the only one who had cared about her in the maze.  Thomas, the one who she trusted.  Thomas, the one she had grown up with.  Thomas, who she had known would never forgive her.  Thomas, the only one she wanted a future with. Thomas, who she gave up everything for, just did the same right back.  
She rushed forward to what was left of him.  The piece of ceiling had caught him in the chest, and covered most of his body.  Teresa knelt down next to him, chocked sobs escaping her against her will.   _“Tom… No…”_   
Thomas gazed back at her, eyes beginning to glaze over.  He mouthed her name, no sound escaping his lips.    
 _“I’m sorry,”_ she sobbed, _“I’m so, so sorry.”_  
Teresa almost didn’t hear it through the noise around her.  Using what she knew to be his last breath, he replied, _“I forgive you.”_

* * *

 

Brenda and Minho were both waiting for her after she went through the Flat-trans.  Well, not for her.  Of course, she had foolishly forgotten the Gladers’ contempt for her.  

In fact, the first words she heard after the death of her best friend were, “What the hell are you doing here?  Where’s Thomas?”  
Teresa jumped to defend herself.  “What do you mean?  I came through the Flat-trans,” she said, looking behind her.  
“Of course, I mean, why didn’t you get crushed? I saw you back there with that kid, that was a dumbass move,” Brenda retorted.  
Teresa swallowed, suddenly nervous.  Minho narrowed his eyes at her.  
“He… He pushed me out of the way,” she said quietly, looking down at her hands.  After  a moment, she heard a high, cold laugh.  Shocked, she stared angrily at Brenda.    
“So you’re telling me he died to save _you?”_ she laughed again.  
“Brenda, _shut up,”_ Minho muttered.  
“No! No, I won’t, because Thomas hates you.  He wouldn’t save you period, let alone die to save you,” she spat.  “You liar.”  
 _“I’m not lying!”_ Teresa yelled. _“He forgave me!  In his last words!”_ She was crying again, trembling with the onslaught of  emotion.  
Brenda laughed once more.  “Minho, c’mon, let’s go find him.” She gave Teresa’s shoulder a shove as she stalked off.  
Minho cast another glare at her.  “Aren’t you gonna go help her?” she asked him.  
He breathed in sharply.  “No.”  
She watched as he took off running towards the trees, opposite of the direction Brenda had gone.

* * *

  
Thomas was dead.  Thomas was dead.  Thomas died to save Teresa, _Teresa of all people,_ and he had _forgiven_ her.  Minho didn’t doubt that it was the truth.  Teresa had been desperate for forgiveness, but not from Minho or Brenda.  He knew that she hated both of them, and there was no reason she would lie to them.  
First Newt, now Thomas.  He didn’t have anyone left he cared about, no matter how much he told himself that he and Brenda were on the same side, she could never be to him what Thomas and Newt were.  
The forest fell away to a rocky cliff, overlooking water.  Whether it was a lake or an ocean, Minho couldn’t tell, and didn’t really care.  All he cared about was that it would be difficult for anyone to find him out here.  
He climbed a tree that night, just sat there, thinking through everything that had happened.  He fell asleep eventually, and awoke with a crick in his neck and shoulders weighted down with the past.  
He wandered the forest for another day, avoiding people at all costs.  If it meant he never had to see another human, he would be happy to starve there.  
The next morning, he woke up from dreams of the Glade.  His fingers jumped to the spot on his neck where his tattoo was. _The Leader._  
Later that day, Minho found the rest of the group gathered in a building, looking somewhat lost as they sat in odd groups around the room.  He stood tall in the doorframe, and called for everyone’s attention.

* * *

  
They found that Paradise was very similar to the Glade.  They had been provided with a large meeting hall, a kitchen, bathrooms, and a few buildings that seemed to be entirely storage. There was a farm, set apart from the rest of the buildings.  Someone had planted crops, and there were animals in fenced in areas, all surrounding a barn.  There was machinery inside the barn that they would need to manufacture supplies for themselves.  
It was as if this place had been abandoned the day before they had come here.    
Of course, all of this would certainly make it easier to build a strong community, but they had been provided nothing but building material in the way of housing.  Most people were sleeping on pillows and blankets they had found in storage in the meeting hall.  Minho now had everyone working on building houses, giving everyone different tasks.  A routine had been set in place.  You asked Minho what to do, did what he told you, and then asked him for the next job.  
Teresa felt useless for the first few weeks in Paradise.  Minho was undoubtedly the best leader for them, but he seemed to find Teresa incompetent of the simplest task.  On the first day of this routine, Teresa asked Minho what her task was, and he replied, “Stay out of the way.”  So, she did.  She hid in between crates in one of the storage buildings and cried.  Out of the way.  That’s what she should have done the whole time.  She should have stayed out of the way when that girl wouldn’t save herself.  Thomas would still be here.  He’d be alive, even if he never forgave her, he’d be happy with Brenda and Minho.  It’s all she’d ever wanted.  Now he was gone, and it was entirely her fault. _It was her fault._  She missed him so much, it hurt her all over.  
The next day was almost exactly the same, only when Minho told her to stay out of the way, he’d glared at her and added, “what did I tell you the first time?”  
She stopped asking after that.  She almost never left the space between the crates. She didn’t mind.  It seem that, like the Glade, whoever had intended them to be here had known there were things in the outside world that they would need, but since they couldn’t request items to receive, they had provided them with everything imaginable.  She even found a basket filled with yarn and knitting needles.  No one bothered her, and no one came looking for her, though it wasn’t as if she was expecting them to.

* * *

  
Minho didn’t want to be the kind of leader that didn’t do any of the work he assigned.  He did his part with the rest of the Immunes, building the houses and working on the farm.  He did his best to avoid talking to anyone at first.  He gave orders, but otherwise worked in solitude.  He tried to be fair to everyone, like a good leader should, but he couldn’t help his attitude towards Teresa.  She was the reason his best friend was dead.  Thomas was all he thought about anymore.  It hurt more than anything else he’d ever felt.    
Thomas would be upset if he knew Minho was treating Teresa the way he was.   
But then again, Thomas wasn’t here.  And it was Teresa’s fault.  
After a few days, Brenda began to work with him.  She didn’t talk to him at first, which he preferred.  He presumed she was just as miserable as he was, until she had had enough of the silence.    
Brenda, unlike him, was angry.  Minho hadn’t liked Teresa, he had hated her, but nothing could compare to the hatred Brenda seemed to have for her.  Brenda began to talk nonstop about this.  She said over and over again how it was her fault, how Thomas’s life was worth ten times more than Teresa’s.  Minho had finally had enough when Brenda said, “Honestly, what was Thomas thinking, saving her?  How dumb can you get?”  
He made up some excuse about going to get more supplies, and ran off.  He wasn’t even sure where he was running, until he ran right into someone.  Embarrassed, he muttered a quick _“sorry,”_ and dusted himself off.  He held out his hand, and in a second, Teresa had taken it and pulled herself up.  
Then she just stood there.  Minho kept trying to run off, but Teresa seemed to have him pinned under her hurt gaze.  
“What are you doing?” he spat at her.  
“I was trying to stay out of the way, like you asked me to.  Like I’ve been doing for a week,” she snapped.  Minho noticed the look on her face mirrored the way he felt.  Tired and miserable.  She looked like she had been crying recently.  
“And I don’t know why you don’t trust me, it’s not like I have any reason to double-cross any of you.  I have nothing left, and you’re trying to stop me from ever having anything to live for ever again!  Do you really want that, Minho?” Her voice became more and more shrill with every word.  Her hands clenched into fists and her eyes filled with tears.    
Minho felt his eyes prickle. _Strong leaders don’t cry,_ he told himself.  But Teresa just stood crying as she continued to wait for his reply.  He bit his lip and urged himself not to reply.  
But the words seemed to be powered by rage and hurt and all the bitterness he associated with her.   _“I hate you!  It’s your fault!”_ he cried.  Tears began to spill from his eyes as he finally said what he thought every time he looked at her.   
“God, Minho, don’t you think I know that?  Don’t you think that’s the only thing I ever think about anymore?   _Of course it’s my fault, you dumbass, it’s all my fault!_ ” she yelled at him.  
Minho took a deep breath, trying to steady his voice.  He was about to reply, when she said, “You had feelings for him, didn’t you?”  
 _“What do you mean?”_ Minho retorted.  
“Don’t play dumb!”  
“I’m… I don’t know what your talking about.”  
Teresa laughed, short and humorless.  “Just shut up and and cry,” she said.    
He eyed her reluctantly.  She didn’t have anyone left, just like him.  She had no one to tell.  
“You’re right,” he muttered, wiping pathetically at his eyes.  “I did.  I do.”   
A moment later, Minho looked back up at Teresa.  She was still standing there, gaze unwavering.    
“Go find Gally.  He needs another hand with the houses.”   
She nodded at him, and began to walk in the direction he had come from.    
He still blamed her.  Still hated her.  But at least she understood what she had done to him.

* * *

  
Teresa thought Gally would’ve forgiven her.  Thomas forgave Gally for what he’d done under WICKED’s command. And Gally had killed Chuck.  As it turned out, he had either not forgiven her, or not forgiven anyone.  
Gally, as it turned out, had reverted to the same person he'd been in the Glade.  Teresa told him that Minho had assigned to help him, and he had eyed her suspiciously for a long moment, before telling her to help him set down foundation for one of the houses.  
She got to work quickly, and after a few minutes in silence, tried and failed to start a conversation with him.  She tried a few more times, before he snapped that she should give it up.  She kept her head down after that.  
For a while, she worked alongside Aris.  This time he did respond to her attempts at making conversation, which she was extremely grateful for.  She and Aris had gotten along well before the maze and neither of them had ever believed anything romantic would happen between them.  She had expected things to be uncomfortable for a little while, but she hadn’t expected that they would spend almost the whole week working together, and still wouldn't be able to get past awkward small talk.  
After the first week, they had finished building the first house.  To celebrate, a bonfire was lit out in the forest.  Most of the people in Paradise flocked around it, adults sitting on fallen logs and the ground nearby, kids whose parents had made it chasing each other noisily, kids whose parents hadn't made it sitting by themselves, eerily quiet.  Teresa sat down next to Aris when she saw him.  Neither of them spoke as they stared into the fire, watching it jump and recede.  Finally Aris spoke up.    
"Look, Teresa, I don't know if we should stay friends."  
Teresa turned her head to look at him, confused.  "Why?"  
Aris sighed.  "Well, its not that we can't be friends, really, its just that we can't go back to being friends the way we were when it was you, me, Thomas and Rachel.  You know?"  
Teresa nodded.  “Yeah,” she said.    
Aris smiled.  “At least we tried,” he added.  Teresa looked down at her hands twisting in her lap.  She agreed that their relationship now was too formal, that they hadn't been able to get past small talk, and therefore shouldn't stay friends.  But as Aris walked away, she began to panic.  "But since Rachel and Thomas are gone, that should mean that we band together and support each other, because we know what it feels like," she said in a rush, to only herself.  
What would she do now?  She was utterly alone, no one to talk to, no one to sit with, no one to look for in a crowd.  
She saw Brenda shoot her a look across the fire.  It wasn't resentful, or angry, but instead sympathetic.  Teresa didn't want her sympathy, but she deserved it.  Brenda had Minho.  Teresa had no one.    
But the look disappeared as soon as it had come, leaving Teresa no time to look sympathetically back.  Because after their conversation last week, Teresa knew that Brenda wouldn't have Minho much longer.

* * *

  
Minho felt bad for the way things ended with Brenda.  He thought she deserved better.  She was a good person, and she had a big heart.  But she had lost sight of herself after Thomas’s death.  
She had stopped complaining about Teresa and Thomas and really anyone or anything for a while, but Minho supposed she had finally snapped the day that they stopped speaking to each other.  It had happened very suddenly, the topic of their conversation switching from celebrating the success of the last house they had finished construction on to what an idiot Thomas was for leaving them to deal with Teresa without him.  
And Minho had put up with it for less than a minute before snapping too.  
“Stop.  Just, stop.  I can’t sit here and listen to you talk about him like that.  You obviously didn’t care about him that much if you can say these things about him like he’s still alive.”  And then, like the asshole he knew himself to be, he ran off without another word.  
He and Brenda didn’t speak for what felt like a long time, but without anyone to talk to or be around, he lost track of time very frequently.  He counted the time in finished building projects most specifically, and he didn’t speak to Brenda for about 20 buildings.  At that point it was decided that they had constructed living spaces for all the Immunes, since many had decided to room together to save space.  The buildings were not expert, nothing at all like they ones they had seen in Denver, and they were small and built close together.  But no one wanted to be very far from human comfort, so the arrangement was beneficial for most.  
There was more that Minho needed to do as the leader, but he had given up.  The task of leading the community in Paradise had fallen to new leaders, and Minho was free to ignore everyone, the way he had tried that first day.    
Without work or Brenda to take his mind off everything, a crushing loneliness began to posses every thought he had.  It pressed in on him constantly, a pressure on his shoulders that he couldn’t shake.  
So Minho began to run again, working himself to exhaustion every day.  The running did nothing to distract him from thoughts of Thomas, but it made him feel as if he was doing something important.  He would think to himself as he ran that once he reached a certain point he would be happy, he would not be lonely.  That if he kept running he would finally reach something that would make his life worth living.  
He woke up early every morning, picked up a day’s worth of food from the dining hall that the new leaders had set up, stuffed it in the smallest backpack he could find, and ran.  He ran until the very last rays of sun had gone, and he could no longer see where he was headed.  He was running more than he had in the maze.  He was running more than he had in his life.   
He didn’t think once about the problems there were with running nonstop, and how he was going to wear himself to death.  He ignored any thoughts along those lines, and succeeded at it for weeks.  For too long.  And the first time it crossed his mind was on a perfectly normal day, close to sunset.  The sky was overcast, and Minho was wondering if it meant that Paradise was going to be getting rain for the first time when a flash of blue darted out from the trees nearby and shoved forcefully into his side.  Pain shot through both sides as he crashed on the forest floor, whoever had knocked him over crashing with him.  
He managed to turn his head to see that Teresa had him pinned, sitting on his side.  He gave a yell of protest and struggled to push her off of him.    
 _“Minho! Stop!_ Look, I’ll let you up, I just need to talk to you!”    
Minho continued his efforts for a moment, but gave up, realizing the sincerity in her voice.  Maybe something had happened.  Maybe they needed his help.  He could always just decline, he realized,  and so he stilled, and then nodded.  Teresa sat down on the ground next to Minho, and he sat up to meet her gaze.  
“Minho…” she started, and then, unexpectedly, she laughed. _“What are you doing?”_ she asked, laughing again.  
“What do you mean?” he asked.  
“I mean, why are you doing this to yourself?  Why aren’t you trying to fix this?” she asked, imploringly.  
“Oh, of course.  You need me to fix of all of your problems so that you can have your perfect little society, and-”  
“Oh shut up, Minho,” she cut him off.  “That’s not what I mean, Minho, _look at you!_  You’ve been doing nothing but running for the past month!  I haven’t seen you interact with anyone, you don’t even speak to the people who work at the dining hall.  It’s not good for you, Minho.  And I know you have nothing but contempt when it comes to me, but you were his best friend, and he loved you.  I don’t want to see you lose your life like this.  I care about you.  I care how you feel and I care if you live or die,” she said.  It seemed rehearsed, as if she had gone over it in her head repeatedly.  
“Why do you care?” Minho asked, feeling immediately guilty.  She was trying her best to help him, and he knew that everything she was saying was true.  He was sore, and more tired than he’d ever been in his life.    
“We were in the maze together, Minho.  We went through a lot together.  Yeah, most of it was spent hating each other,” she laughed, “but still.  I hate to see you doing this to yourself.  You don’t just forget about what we went through.”  
Minho wanted to hate her so badly.  He wanted to be able to stand up, and run off.  He wanted to tell her he was content running in the woods for the rest of his life, and he wanted to tell her to leave him alone.  But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.  He wanted to hate her, but for what?  He was so tired, he could hardly remember.  And he was so lonely, he hardly cared.  
 _“Thank you,”_ he finally said, feebly, making him feel pathetic.  
“Any time,” Teresa replied.  They walked together in silence out of the forest.  By the time  they reached Minho’s house, he felt he might drop dead from exhaustion.  He fell asleep immediately, and didn’t wake until around noon the next day.

* * *

  
Teresa had known she wouldn’t be able to predict how Minho would react to her confrontation, but of all the possible outcomes, the least likely seemed to be the one that was taking place.  Teresa was eating lunch the next day in the dining hall (alone, of course) when she heard the scrape of metal on metal as the chair next to her was pulled out.  She looked up to see Minho, sitting down next to her.  
She supposed she should ask him what he was doing, but it didn’t feel strange.  She didn’t want to make things uncomfortable, so she waited for him to speak first.  
But he didn’t.  He didn’t speak until they had both finished and he had followed her out of the hall and they were walking between the houses.  “I just wanted to thank you, again, for… you know…” He trailed off, not looking at her.  Teresa guessed that it was probably painful for him to have to admit he was wrong.  
“Yeah.  I know.  It’s okay, you would do the same for me.”    
At that last part, Minho laughed. “No I wouldn’t, we both know that,” he retorted.  
“Okay, yes, fair point.  I guess I’m just a good person.  I can’t stand to watch sad, pathetic things struggle,” she added.  
“Ouch,” Minho said, an entirely fake pained expression on his face.  
They kept walking when the houses stopped.  The path stretched out past the farm and along the cliff ahead of them.  “So,” Minho asked, “What have you been doing with your time for the past month?”  
Teresa searched for an answer that wasn’t entirely pathetic.  “Well…”  In truth, she had mostly been reading.  She had found crates full of books tucked away in storage, most of them fantasy novels, but some about medicine and caring for every ill from a common cold to a serious infection.  Once she decided she had read enough to know her way around small injuries, she moved most of the medical supplies to her living-room-turned-office, and eventually became Paradise’s unofficial doctor.  Every so often when a child would scrape their knee or elbow, they would run to her house, where she would wash and bandage their wound.  She had not had a patient with any serious injury yet, however, and so she had no experience being a real doctor.   So she just said, “I’ve been knitting.” Which she had.  
Minho laughed loudly.  “You’ve been knitting, like, sweaters and scarves?”  
Teresa decidedly did not blush.  “Yes, knitting.  It’s very therapeutic.”  
“Really?  It sounds really emotionally draining,” Minho smirked.  
“It is emotionally draining.  Scarves are very critical beings.”  
“Are they?”  
“They are.”  
“I can’t say I’ve ever met a scarf who wasn’t perfectly kind.  Maybe you should knit me one.”  
“If you really want that negativity, then fine.”  
Teresa began to spend many of her waking hours with Minho.  She figured that Minho had had time to sort of his feelings while he had been alone, because he no longer hated her.  Most of the time they spent together was spend in silence, but neither of them minded.  Teresa taught Minho some of medicine she had been learning, and he assisted her with treating the worst injury she had gotten yet: a broken arm, after a seven-year-old girl had attempted to climb up to the roof of the house.  Teresa loaned Minho some of her books, and they read together almost all day.   
They began to talk about the books, too.  They compared many of the struggles of the protagonists to their own.  Eventually the topic of their conversations changed to other things.  They talked about the goings-on in Paradise, they talked about plans for the future, and, eventually, talked about the past.  Teresa was surprised Minho wanted to talk about it, seeing as he was was the one who had gotten mad at Brenda for it, but he had brought it up first, and she had cooperated.  
The day that Gally broke out his old “recipe” was the day that Teresa’s life went to shit.  Another bonfire was lit, and again, most of the people in Paradise were congregated there, though this time it was later, and most of the kids were asleep.  Minho brought them two tall  jar, filled to the brim with the yellowish liquid.  As Teresa drank it, it occurred to her that Minho must be used to the taste.  She had never tried alcohol, only read about it.  But now that she had, she realized that books never seemed to mention how bitter it was.  It looked disgusting, and it tasted disgusting, but she kept drinking it, because of what people said about its effects.  Minho finished his first, and he laughed when he saw Teresa’s pained expression as she drank.    
“Am I drunk yet?” she asked once she had finished.  
“Not if you have to ask,” Minho said, and got up to get more.  In truth, Teresa was beginning to feel fuzzy already.  Fuzzy, but not drunk.  When Minho returned, they drank again, wordlessly.  They were both past halfway done when Teresa cried, loudly, “Stop!”  
“Why?!” Minho yelled back.  
“Shush!”  Teresa whispered.  
“Okay, okay. Why?” Minho whispered back.  
“Because,” she replied, looking around to make sure no one was listening.  “If we drink it all now, we’ll run out.”  
“Or fall asleep,” Minho nodded.  
“Fall asleep?!” Teresa yelled, and Minho shushed her again. “What are we? Twenty-five?”  
To that Minho just laughed, until Teresa was laughing because of how much he was laughing.  “That’s ridiculous!  We’d have gray hair!  And beards, and children!”  They continued laughing in between huge gulps.  
“Well, you do knit, Teresa,” Minho said, a fresh wave of laughter stopping his speech.  
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to knit them a scarf!” she clutched her stomach, her ribs sore from the laughter.  
“Did you do it?”  Minho asked earnestly.  
“Guess what.”  
“What.”  
“Guess!” Teresa demanded.  
“You made me a scarf.”  
 _“I made you a scarf!”_  She sounded incredulous, as if she didn’t believe herself.    
They continued on like this until their jars were empty and Gally refused to refill them, and for hours afterwards.  Somehow the conversation had drifted back to Thomas.  They were sitting pressed close together, one arm slung around the other.    
“I mean, he was _sort of_ dumb, wasn’t he?” Minho asked.   
Teresa laughed.  “He was!  I mean, really, he made some godawful decisions.”  
“And yet, we still had feelings for him!” Minho sighed, exasperatedly.  
“What the hell is wrong with us?” she said, putting her hand to her forehead and shaking her head.  
There was a pause, and then Minho said, “I’m glad he saved you, though.”  
Teresa’s mind must have shut off, because the next thing she knew, they were kissing.  The alcohol made all contact more stimulating, and this felt like electricity.  It was warm, and made her feel momentarily blissful, until that part of her that stopped her from doing stupid, stupid things like this began to scream.   
And she pulled back.  “What are you doing?” she asked, and realized a second too late that it had come out bitterly, and angrily.

* * *

  
Minho began to panic.  He didn’t know why he had kissed her.  He hadn’t even thought he had had feelings for her until this moment.  “I… What?”  
“What are you doing?” she repeated, sounding angrier with each word.  She stood up, and he followed suit.  
“Teresa, I-”  
She interrupted him.  “I’m in love with Thomas,” she said.  
He tried to apologize, but the words seemed to get caught in his throat, and instead he said, “I know that, Teresa, and so was I.  I was in love with him.  But he’s not here anymore, and he’ll never be here to love me back.  You can’t mourn forever.  I thought that’s what you were trying to teach me, but I guess you don’t understand it yourself.”  All the effects of the alcohol had worn off, and Minho wanted to leave.  He didn’t want to run.  He wanted to be alone.  He turned his back to Teresa, and disappeared into the trees, running back towards the houses, not listening to her pleas for him to stop, to come back.

* * *

  
Teresa was more angry at herself that she had ever been at anyone in her entire life.  Minho was her only friend.  Minho was her best friend.  And of course, now that he had kissed her, she had screwed up everything.    
And the problem, she thought, as she sat on the floor of her bedroom, holding her knitting needles in her hand, was that now that they had kissed, she realized she did have feelings for him.    
Of course, she still cared for Thomas.  She still had feelings for him, and knew that if he was alive, she wouldn’t have even considered being with Minho a possibility.  But Minho was right.  Thomas was gone, and things were different.  Thinking about what-ifs wouldn’t take her anywhere but backwards.  
Minho had made a mistake while drunk that had led to her both destroying their friendship and any chance they could have ever had of a romantic relationship.   
And she couldn’t stop looking at that stupid fucking scarf.  
She finally gave up productivity and grabbed the scarf from the shelf above her bed.  She turned it over in her hands.  It was undoubtedly the best thing she’d ever knitted, having known it was the only thing people were going to see.  She had knitted it with black yarn, and then had tied tiny pieces of yarn onto the black, so that it looked flecked with every color in her knitting basket.  She rubbed the scarf against her cheek, wishing she could see it in Minho’s hands.  
The next day, she awoke with the scarf still clutched tightly to her.  Looking down at it, she made the decision to give him space.  To give him at least two days.  One day.  She figured this was generous, as she already felt like she was going to go insane with the loneliness.  Her books couldn’t seem to distract her.  Knitting was out of the question, and no one was currently in need of medical attention.    
So instead she planned out every word she wanted to say to Minho when she finally got the chance to talk to him, first.  Then she planned where she would find him and how she would get him to listen to her.  It occurred to her many times how pathetic she seemed, even to herself.  But she couldn’t think about anything else.  
Finally, night fell, and she could try to sleep until the next day, when she would attempt to talk to Minho.  She didn’t sleep, however, because the nervous energy would not allow her.  When it was finally light again, Teresa grabbed the scarf and ran out her front door.  The day was overcast, and slightly cold, but she didn’t go back inside for her coat.    
When she hammered on Minho’s door, she got no response.  She opened the door to find the house empty, the door to the bedroom wide open and revealing only his furniture.    
She headed for the woods straight away, following the path she had known Minho to take before he had befriended her.  As she walked, is occurred to her that she had not just cared for him like she cared for everybody when she had stopped him.  She wouldn’t have done that for just anyone.  And she must have been lying, even to herself, when she said she had only wanted to help him because he was Thomas’s best friend.  How long had if been, then?  How long did it take for someone to become so much a part of her that having them taken away triggered a loneliness and misery unlike any other she had experienced?  She decided that her feelings for Minho must’ve began the first day she noticed his absence from the rest of the Immunes, and grown since the moment she realized what he was putting himself through.  
By the time she finally saw him up ahead, she was desperate, and any plans she had made in the previous day went out the window as she called his name.  
 _“Minho, wait!”_  To her extreme surprise, he stopped, turning around to face her.  She rushed up to him, knuckles turning white as she gripped the scarf like if was her last lifeline.  
“I…” She tried to begin.  Her throat felt dry, and she swallowed before starting again.  “I’m so stupid.”  And then she froze.  “Sorry.  I meant I’m so sorry.”  
Minho folded his arms.  “Go on,” he prompted.  
“I wish I could just go back in time and change everything I did.  You’re right, I was being so stupid, and blind, and I just… I hate myself for it, okay?  I have feelings for you, Minho. I care so much about you and I was blinded by grief and I never even realized before that night but I want to be with you and I’m so messed up and I don’t know my own feelings anymore but I think I love you.”  And there it was, every plan she had made so carefully, abandoned to the wind.  
Minho didn’t reply for a moment, and Teresa’s heart sank.  She felt tears begin to burn in her eyes, and she couldn’t believe he would leave her after everything, when she realized that he was looking at the scarf.  
“Is that…” Minho asked, incredulous.  
“Yes.”  The tears began to spill without her consent, not knowing which feeling was causing them, but knowing it was powerful, and all encompassing.  “Yes, it is.”  She held it out for him, and he took it from her.  
He looked up at her, holding the scarf as if it were something precious.  “I love you too.”

* * *

  
Maybe after all his running he had finally found what he was looking for.  
That god damn scarf.


End file.
